Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
We live in a time when access to psychological knowledge has never been so common. We are surrounded by podcasts about building habits, guides on how to become the “best version of yourself”, meditation techniques, biohacking methods, affirmations and developmental challenges. At first glance, this is a wonderful phenomenon – as a society, we are becoming more and more aware of our emotions, boundaries and needs.
However, the dark side of this phenomenon is increasingly observed in therapeutic offices. We are visited by people who are exhausted, overstimulated by their own process of “healing”. These are people who devote every free moment to analyzing their traumas, listening to developmental podcasts and tracking their own mood, and yet they feel more and more fear and emptiness.
When does working on oneself cease to be a path to freedom, and becomes an oppressive duty? When do we fall into the trap of constant self-development, which – instead of healing – becomes a sophisticated form of violence against ourselves?
Culture of optimization and treating man as a project to be repaired
In the systemic-cultural approach, we cannot analyze the problems of the individual in isolation from the world in which he functions. We live in a culture of hyper-productivity that has commercialized almost every sphere of our lives, including mental health. The message coming from the environment is subtle but ruthless: “You can always be better. You can always get up earlier, manage your emotions better, eat healthier and work through your traumas faster.”
In this narrative, man ceases to be a living, sentient being who has the right to weakness, error and stagnation. It becomes a “design” to be optimized. We absorb this cultural script very deeply, starting to treat ourselves like a defective product on the assembly line. Believing that our value is how much we are “overworked” (in the therapeutic sense) and “aware” is a simple way to lose touch with our true selves.
Self-development as a new mask for self-aggression, i.e. self-hatred
One of the most dangerous mechanisms that can be observed is when self-development becomes a clever camouflage for deep self-rejection.
Often, under the slogan “I want to work on myself”, there is a subconscious, painful belief: “The way I am now, I am insufficient. Only when I fix all my flaws, work through my fears and be perfectly assertive – I deserve love, peace and respect”.
In such a mode, any behavior that does not correspond to the dream ideal – an outburst of anger, a day spent in bed because of sadness, reaching for unhealthy food – becomes a reason to whip oneself. We impose strict “emotional diets” on ourselves, forgetting that true acceptance does not impose conditions. Violence against oneself does not have to manifest itself in screaming in front of the mirror. It often takes the form of mercilessly forcing ourselves to take another course, another meditation, another analysis of our behavior, at the moment when our nervous system is begging to simply “be”.
Toxic positivity and the escape trap
In the discourse on self-development, we also often encounter the phenomenon of toxic positivity. It is the compulsion to maintain only “high vibrations”, to be always grateful and to look for the positive in every, even the most devastating situation.
From the point of view of biology and the functioning of the nervous system, it is a deeply damaging mechanism. Sadness, grief, anger and frustration are natural reactions of the body to loss or crossing boundaries. Forcing oneself to smile in a moment of crisis is a form of psychological dissociation. When we deny ourselves the right to difficult emotions and forcibly cover them up with affirmations, our true wound begins to fester.
How to distinguish healthy work on oneself from oppression?
The line between self-care and torturing oneself with development can be thin, but recognizing it is crucial for returning to balance.
| Oppressive development (autoaggressive) | Supportive development (in the spirit of acceptance) | |
| Motivation | I act out of a sense of lack: “I have to fix this because I’m hopeless.” | I act out of respect for myself: “I deserve to feel better about myself.” |
| Response to the crisis | Self-criticism, shame, a sense of wasting the previous therapy/work. | Validation of feelings: “I have the right to have a worse day, it’s a natural stage of the process.” |
| Pace | Fast, forced, goal-oriented. | Adapted to the resources of the nervous system, with room for breaks. |
| Attitude to disadvantages | An attempt to completely cut them out, suppress them and remove them. | Understanding where they came from and caring for them with kindness. |
Psychotherapy is not a repair like in a car repair shop
We believe that psychotherapy is not about making you a “super-human”, resistant to all pain, never crying and always assertive. Therapy is not a workshop where a defective car is inserted and after a few months a flawless model is picked up (of course, it’s a comparison).
The deep meaning of therapy – and true self-development – is to regain freedom. It is the right to be in the process. The right to stop sometimes and do absolutely nothing with yourself. It is the ultimate understanding that you are valuable not in spite of your cracks, but together with them.
If you feel that the pursuit of self-development has become another burden on your shoulders and you would like a safe, judgment-free space where you can simply take off that armor – you are welcome. Sometimes the biggest change we can make is to stop trying to change ourselves by force.
